One Crazy Summer

I last edited this post back in August.  I meant to add more images and post it.  But like the post said, I got busy.  Posting it now, unedited. C’est la vie

I feel like I haven’t really written anything since the beginning of May.  It has been a whirlwind summer marked by spring-time like weather (I think we have only had 1 or 2 days over 90 degrees), fascinating events, and remarkable mini trips.   Ever since, and including, the world cup, my summer living has been quite a busy one.  Here are some of the going on’s, a hodgepodge collective:

I have been spending any of my writing energy working on Matters of Grey.   MoG is a little project that some friends and I began officially back in January, that we hope to one day become a big project.  As our Facebook description reads:

A geek collective writing about things us geeks want to know about. Whether it be web design, usability, social networking, social medias, SEO, technology, quantum physics, nerd humor, cool ringtones, or about anything that will make us geek out.

I have been mostly writing about happenings in Foursquare, Twitter, Google and other mainstream marketing scenarios.  It has been a really challenging project for me because even though I am highly plugged in, I do not consider myself “geeky.”  It has been an interesting experience trying to find a voice and an angle.  But I continue to try and find things and ways that I can contribute.  It is a good challenge for me.

We have recently climbed over 14K visitors per month.

I had always heard good things about the showtime show Dexter, but never got into the show because I didn’t need another need.  But I have become addicted.  Has anyone ever said a bad thing about this show?  Everyone always raves about it, and now I am one of those as well.

When I had my knee surgery back in January, Joey was kind enough to loan me some movies and T.V shows.  I decided to give Dexter a try.  But I soon saw that he only had season 2 and 3, but not 1.  But it was at that time that I made it a priority.  A few months later, tracked down season 1 and I was ready to begin.

At hour-long episodes, and 4 seasons, it was a nightly occurence to watch 1-5 episodes.  It is a dark grueling show, but it is indeed addictive.

I had been looking for Comic-Con tickets for quite a bit of time, as I thought that it might present itself with some opportunities to spread the MoG name.   All avenues of ticket finding had failed for me.  So I  signed up to go to a networking type event on the USS Midway called the TweetHouse.  Despite promising some A-list celebrities and many connected marketing and social media types, the highlights were brief, including a Hasselhoff sighting.

We arrived and got mistaken as celebrities, so we got a picture on the red carpet.  The place was rather empty.  We chatted with the iamstylin guy, and a few other social media folk.  Greg and I found our way into a VIP area and started chatting up someone that works at Pixar and did some writing on UP.  Other “celebs” we ran into was Red from that 70’s show, Data from Star Trek, and speaking of Trek, William Shatner.

On the Friday of the event, I was given tickets to Comic-con.  I was excited and I had never been to one, so I did not know what to expect.  It was a mass of people.  Random crazy people dressed up as random things.  It was so packed.  As Joey and I waded thru the masses, we found ourselves at the Rock Band 3 booth.  Sweet.  I have been highly anticipating this game, and even writing previews on it over at MoG.  But just as we get there, they start packing up to head to a panel.  We try to follow them and find our way barely into the packed room.  They demonstrated the new game and then, like Oprah, gave us all a copy of Rock Band Green Day.

I was pumped.  Not only was it the main panel I would have wanted to see, but to randomly come across it, get in, and then get a free game, I was like a little school boy.  That was the highlight for me.

I have friar pennant fever.  I have been excited and amazed at how the Padres have done this year.  Like most honest, smart baseball people, I did not give the Padres much of a chance this year.  I even placed a friendly wager that they would finish with worse than a .500 record.  Well, I am sure to lose that one, but as long as they make the playoffs, I will be happy with that loss.

I have been going to games and taking my Shrek Hairston sign.  The players have been noticing me, and even recently got tossed a baseball from Nick Hundley because of it.

With Lisa taking flying lessons and needing air time, and Joey begging me to go see some stadiums on his bucket list, we took a quick jaunt to Phoenix for to watch the Padres vs. Dbacks game.  Joey and I and our parents were paranoid.  But we went for it, as you only live once, and more than likely everything would be safe.

We took off from Montgomery Field around 3:30 pm and arrived in Phoenix just before the game.  We got these sweet seats from stub hub that put us 4 rows behind the dugout.  The Padres owner was sitting a few rows ahead of us and we got him to autograph the back of the Shrek sign.  At one point, a proposal was going on behind us, so I stood up, faced the dugout and held up my sign.  Nick Hundley loved my sign and made me stand up so that he could show the rest of the team, including Scott.

The team lost,  and then we boarded the plane and flew home.  That’s right, we took a flight, watched a game, and turned right around.  Crazy!  So much fun though!  What a way to kick off my birthday weekend.

The next night went with some friends to the Station Tavern and then to Hamilton’s Tavern.  Other than an unfortunate skirmish, had a great time out.  I blame the jalepenos that I put on my burger, and not the beers, but I nursed a mild hangover the next day.

Monday continued my birthday celebration as my mother hosted a mainly family gathering.  We made our own pizzas, and had bday cake.  It was perfect.

Tuesday was my actual birthday and I was able to go out to dinner at Karl Strauss and enjoy some bomb Ahi Poke.  So delicious.

Wednesday of that same week I went to the Padres game and was given a ball by Nick Hundley.  And then Thursday went to dinner yet again.  It was a wild, fun, tiring and very awesome birthday week.

And Away They Go!  I’ve been able to go to the race track on 2 different occasions. And I went to D.C to visit my good friend Josh Weir.

So it has been one crazy summer.  Speaking of a crazy summer, I have always been a fan of the 80’s movie after the same name.  And here is my favorite clip from that movie:

Tags: dexter, matters of grey, one crazy summer

This entry was posted on Friday, February 25th, 2011 at 1:17 pm and is filed under Ramblings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.